Odysseus: How To Stop Being a Stranger in Your Own Home (The Odyssey Read-Along)

Hello fellow-traveller,

Welcome to the Odyssey read-along. Here’s the schedule for you to navigate through this story.

This post, and the ones that will follow, are divided into sections so you can easily follow the text and re-read passages. It does not matter what translation you use — the lines should be the same, although translated differently.

This is the seventh post in the series, if you’re curious about what happened before, please feel free to read the previous weeks’ instalments.

In this journey, I am both an Odysseus and a Telemachus. I might get lost and get stuck on Calypso’s island, yet at the same time, like Telemachus, I need to awaken to act. These are the notes of a fellow-reader, not a scholar.

I’ve just released an interview with Emily Katz Anhalt, a Professor of Classics, discussing how we should read The Odyssey. You can listen to it here:

I hope you will enjoy it.

WEEK 7 · Books 13–15 · “The Beggar King”

Book 13 Odysseus finishes his tale; the Phaeacians load him with treasure and sail him home through the night — He is set down asleep on the shore of Ithaca — Poseidon, enraged, turns the Phaeacian ship to stone as it enters harbour — Odysseus wakes and does not recognise his homeland; Athena appears disguised as a young shepherd — She reveals the truth, helps him hide his treasure in a cave, and transforms him into an old and ragged beggar so that none will know him

Book 14 Odysseus makes his way to the hut of the swineherd Eumaeus, the most loyal of his servants — Eumaeus receives the beggar with all the warmth of true hospitality, lamenting his absent master — Odysseus, still in disguise, tells an elaborate false tale of his identity — He tests the swineherd’s character and finds it sound; Eumaeus covers the beggar with his own cloak against the cold

Book 15 Athena appears to Telemachus in Sparta and warns him to hurry home, telling him his mother may remarry — Telemachus sails back, picking up the fugitive prophet Theoclymenus on the way — Theoclymenus reads an omen of eagles and promises that Odysseus is already on Ithaca plotting destruction — Telemachus lands quietly to avoid the suitors’ ambush and goes straight to Eumaeus’s hut

Proofread by Lisa Statler

My dear reader, we have arrived at the middle of our story where we find another threshold Odysseus must cross.

Last week, we looked at how he was cast onto the island of Calypso, alone, the sole survivor, after his crew violated the sacred order by slaughtering the cattle of the sun on Thrinacia. Odysseus had to tell his entire story to the Phaeacians before he could leave and sail back home. It seems that Homer hints that we, too, must become our own bards.